Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/50

MORAL OBLIGATION. 39 It is evident that we can assign reality or truth to the facts of which necessity, universality and immediacy assure us, only after we apply the question of evolution to them. "Whence are they ? What is that subjective necessity which is objective and transforms convictions into realities ? It is not the necessity of conception to any one, but its necessity for existence or experience ; not the fact that it is believed by all men, but that all experience requires it ; not its un- derivedness in any one's mind, not its priority in time, but that it is the logical prius of the particulars from which it is thought to be derived. Our purpose is not to make a trans- cendental justification of the ethical conceptions. What we do is to assume this rather and to state its counterpart. That is to say, we assume the existence of an ethical sphere of action and develop the consequences of that assumption. If such a sphere of action is denied, if, in other words, Sceptical or Egoistic Hedonism is maintained, there is nothing further to be said. For it is quite possible to deny the validity of the whole scope of Morality. One has only to brand the whole thing as delusion to be secure against every demonstration, seeing that every proof must begin with part of what is denied. I might exhibit the chaos into which the world would fall were morality ex- pelled and did only personal gratification remain, but no one could demonstrate that such chaos was not the natural state and that order was not a fraudulent imposition of schemers for their own behoof. Proceeding then to constitute Ethics as concerned with a distinct round of experience, we apply our objective criterion and ask What is the principle which determines the science of Ethics as such ? The sphere of morality is notoriously the home of subjective conviction. What, then, is it that justifies or purifies these convictions to the individual in regard to their claim to actuality? Whatever it is, it is inviolable for Ethics. That is the cardinal point of this paper. We must find it in order to avoid the suspicion of delusion and subjective dogmatism in our assertions of free- dom and in cases of conscience, as well as to justify our feelings of remorse and devotion. When we have found it we cannot tamper with it without begging the question, for it must be the universal postulate in ethical determinations. As we have already hinted, it is Moral Obligation. There are many other elements without which morality would be impossible, but as these apply to other spheres of knowledge besides Ethics they are not the determiners of the ethical